


Snakeskin Chic

by etothepii



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5500931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothepii/pseuds/etothepii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Adrastus says you've settled," Rachel said, cutting straight to the chase. Adrastus, who had hopped onto the corner of Cassie's bed in the shape of a fluffy white cat, licked at his paw and nodded.</p><p>Cassie smiled tightly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snakeskin Chic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/gifts).



Adrastus was the one to notice first.

"Did you see Delos?" he asked, coiled snugly around Rachel's neck in the brightly-colored form of a snake. Trees and houses zipped past them and the wind buffeted Rachel's face as she pedaled her way down the familiar path from Cassie's house to her own. It wasn't anything like the rush she got from flying but at least like this, Adrastus could be with her. His scales were a cool, solid and familiar weight against her skin.

"Not really," Rachel answered. Cassie's daemon had stayed mostly out of sight during the meeting earlier. She'd only caught a couple glimpses of him in the back of the barn. "He was a snake, right?"

Even though none of them had settled yet, they were getting old enough that except for Marco's Tamillon, who still flicked from one animal to the next as quickly as Marco told dumb jokes, their daemons were staying longer and longer in one form.

"He was a snake," Adrastus confirmed. "A big one. I think he's settled."

Rachel slowed to a stop. Delos, when he wasn't a monkey to better help Cassie with her chores, spent most of his time imitating the animals in their cages. He'd settled as a snake? A big snake? Cassie was nothing like the kind of person Rachel expected to be a snake.

And Cassie was the one who would care about that the most – about who she was, about what it meant, about what the war was turning her (was turning all of them) into. Rachel never liked talking about it with Cassie, but she knew that Cassie _hated_ fighting. She hated being a killer and she would hate the idea that she had the soul of a snake, out there for everyone to see.

"Do you think she's okay?" Rachel looked over her shoulder, back the way she'd come, then up at the setting sun. Her mom would be mad if she was late for dinner or, God forbid, missed it altogether.

"We have to turn around," Adrastus declared. By the time he finished saying it, Rachel had already turned their bike around and hopped back on.

 

Cassie answered the door. Delos, long and dark, was coiled around her waist. Rachel could barely see him under the hem of Cassie's shirt. Cassie looked at her in confusion. "Hi?"

Rachel grinned at her. For Cassie's parents' benefit in case they were listening in, she said, "Hi! Did you study for math yet? I totally forgot we have a test tomorrow and you know my mom's gonna kill me if I fail another test." They didn't have a math test tomorrow.

"Not yet," Cassie said, casting a quick look over her shoulder. "Mom! Dad!" she called out. "It's Rachel! We'll be in my room!"

Cassie shut the door when they were both in her room, then lowered her voice. "What is it?" she asked, serious. "Did something happen?" Delos shifted around her waist and when Cassie noticed Rachel looking at him, she tugged on the bottom of her shirt to hide him from view.

It was the opening Rachel had been waiting for. "Adrastus says you've settled," she said, cutting straight to the chase. Adrastus, who had hopped onto the corner of Cassie's bed in the shape of a fluffy white cat, licked at his paw and nodded.

Cassie smiled tightly. "Black mamba," she said. She waved a hand at the computer on her desk. Rachel recognized the website she was on as one of the ones that had pages and pages about different animals, usually with a little bit about famous people who had settled in those shapes. "They're poisonous. They kill people."

Rachel exchanged glances with Adrastus. She could see now why Adrastus had said something in the first place, because Delos had been quiet the whole time. He hadn't even gone to say hi to Adrastus, even though normally they were best buds.

"C'mon, Cassie," she said. "Lots of animals kill people to protect themselves but you can't blame them for doing it. You're the one who taught me that."

"But he's not an animal. He's _me_ ," Cassie said. "I'm dangerous. I'm a killer."

"You did what you had to do," Rachel said, then ran out of words. The thing was, Cassie wasn't wrong. They were all killers. They had to be, if they wanted to live. That was just how it was. The Yeerks had made sure of that. "That doesn't mean you're evil, or – or a bad person."

"But it does, don't you see?" Cassie cried. She held her hand out, waist high. Delos slithered out from her shirt and she lifted him, holding him up so Rachel could see. He was a long, thin snake, grey with a white belly. He looked away when Rachel met his eyes. His head drooped. "This is who I am now. A snake."

"It doesn't have to mean what you think it does," Adrastus said to Cassie. He had changed to match Delos. Exposed on the bed, it was clear black mambas were _big_ snakes, easily as long as Rachel was tall. He flicked the end of his tail and raised his head in the air. It made him look like he was being hypnotized by a snake charmer. "There's a lot of other reasons he might settle like that. Doctors have snakes too. In some places, it means wisdom. We don't know why we settle like we do. It just happens."

Daemons didn't normally talk to other people. But Cassie was their best friend and sometimes, Rachel didn't just know what to say. It was easier for her. Kill or be killed. Protect the human race. Save her family. Simple enough. She didn't agonize over it the way Cassie did. She could push the guilt away, focus instead on doing what had to be done. 

She grabbed Cassie's free hand and tugged them both to sit on the bed. As soon as Delos moved onto the bed, Adrastus went to him, nudging their heads together. Rachel bumped their shoulders together. Cassie started to cry.

Delos curled into a tight, miserable ball beside them. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice, sounding like he wanted to cry too. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I hate this," Cassie muttered. She rubbed at her tears with the back of her hand. It wasn't her first time crying since they started fighting. It wasn't even her first time doing it in front of Rachel. "I hate this stupid war. I hate killing. I hate – they're _people_ , Rachel. Don't you get it? We act like we're so much better than them and we try not to kill humans, but I don't even know how many Hork-Bajir are dead because of us and _they never wanted this either_! They never asked to be Controllers."

Rachel pulled Cassie into a hug. Over Cassie's shoulder, she could see Adrastus, shifting from shape to shape to try and get a reaction from the other daemon. The fluffy cat again, a striped ferret, a bird with goofy-looking feathers.

"It's not like that. You're the best of us," she said into Cassie's hair. "You're our conscience. If Marco was here he'd call you Jiminy Cricket."

Cassie huffed a weak laugh against Rachel's shoulder. "I don't know what I'm going to tell my parents. They're not going to be expecting this. Or everyone else."

"You don't have to explain it. Your parents won't care and you know the others won't either. And if anyone bothers you about it at school, we'll crush them." She drew back a little to let Cassie see as she flipped her hair back, striking a pose like the popular girls in high school movies. More seriously, she said, "Come on, Cass, you've got to get it together. You're freaking Delos out."

Cassie gave her a watery smile. She held her hand out and Delos slithered onto it. He wrapped himself around her arm. "Sorry," she said, more to Delos than Rachel. She didn't turn away when Rachel reached for her face to wipe away the tear tracks with her palm. "I'm okay. I know it's dumb to care about this when I can't change it."

"It's not dumb," Rachel said. "Of course you care. Your daemon's part of you. But no matter what he looks like, he's still _you_ , and he, you know, completes you and stuff. So you should accept him for who he is, because no matter what he looks like, he's perfect for you and anyone who doesn't understand isn't worth talking to. And... stuff."

Cassie eyed her suspiciously. "Did a guidance counselor tell you that?"

Rachel made a face at her. "No." A moment later, she admitted, "it was my mom. She wanted to make sure I wouldn't freak out if Addy didn't settle as a swan or something." It had been one of the less humiliating parts of her mom's "So You're Becoming a Woman" talk.

Her words startled a laugh out of Cassie. "I remember that! He spent so long like that my parents were asking me if you settled already."

"Pfft," Rachel said. The clench of tension in her chest had unraveled at Cassie's laughter. "No way, we're not a swan."

Cassie's lips quirked. "He just did it to show off at gymnastics meets, didn't he? I always wondered about that. But I didn't want to be rude."

Part of Rachel was warmed that Cassie knew her so well. "Obviously we had to psych out the competition. But what's the point of having wings forever if you're never gonna get more than a room apart?"

"Hey!" Adrastus interrupted, spreading the snowy white wings she'd just been talking about. "Swans aren't that bad. They're really strong too! They're just bigger, stronger geese. And no one messes with geese." He flapped once. The force of it sent the papers on Cassie's desk fluttering into the air. "See?"

His indignant squawk was overlaid by Cassie's giggles when Rachel shoved him off the bed.

 

"Whoa!" Marco exclaimed when he caught sight of Rachel and Cassie in the halls the next day. Tamillon, a lemur today, hopped up and down on Marco's shoulder. Two pairs of eyes darted quickly between Adrastus and Delos. 

Delos was in Cassie's backpack, head sticking out from the top, but Adrastus had chosen to drape himself around Rachel's shoulders like a big, grey necklace. They were both black mambas. Adrastus matched her top and Delos matched Cassie's jacket. The jacket had a patch near the bottom and there was a bird poop stain on the left shoulder, but hey, what could Rachel say? She worked with what she had.

"What is this, a fashion statement? Snake necklace chic?"

Rachel made her best "I am a queen and you are beneath me" face as she ran her hand over Adrastus' scales. Next to her, Cassie smothered a giggle with her hands.

"What can I say?" Rachel said. "Snakes are in this season."


End file.
